1592ca. When Your Purse Is Empty, You Eat Bones Not Bacon - etching - 24 x 17.2 cm - Washington DC, NGA

Translation

6 C. Mander Inve.

While the first down was clothing the cheeks,
Then the vigor of youth loved the Trieterica and the orgies;
Now we lament the losses of an empty purse, alas,
We complain of past times with trivial trifles.

Then we gnawed on hams abundantly, now on dry bones,
Then we were Croesus and Crassus, now Irus, the hinge having turned.
This is not the wheel of Fortune, it is our own madness,
To say, how miserable it is, I had; how bitter the grape.

A vain purse makes the heart discontented,
The time passed, we must lament:
When we cut the bacon all too deeply,
The little ham is gone, we must gnaw the little heel.

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